Streaming Music Trigger Cities
When we think of cities that might have an influence on streaming music counts and trends we usually think of the large music towns of New York City, London, Nashville and Los Angeles. Nothing can be further from the truth however, as a number of “trigger cities” from places around the world you wouldn’t expect have large streaming numbers and are becoming more and more influential.
This is shown in an excellent and very in-depth article on the Chartmetric blog, but I’ll break it down to a more quickly digestible bite here. First, let’s look at the top 20 trigger cities for Spotify.
- Mexico City
- Santiago, Chile
- London
- Los Angeles
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Chicago
- Paris
- New York City
- Dallas
- Amsterdam
- Atlanta
- Houston
- Madrid
- Toronto
- Stockholm
- Oslo
- Jakarta
- Buenos Aires
- San Francisco
- Quezon City, Philippines
While London, Los Angeles, and New York City are no surprise, you’d have to say that most of the rest on the top 20 list were unexpected. Mexico City is always overlooked but is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Quezon City is a total surprise.
YouTube has mostly a way different list than Spotify.
- Mexico City
- Bangkok, Thailand
- Bogota, Columbia
- Lucknow, India
- Santiago, Chile
- Panta, India
- Lima, Peru
- Pune, India
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Indor, India
- Dehli, India
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- New York City
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Paris
- Jaipur, India
- Ahmedabad, India
- Chicago
- Los Angeles
- London
The YouTube trigger cities are dominated by Asia, especially with 7 coming from India.
As the article points out, if you’re an artist, manager or label promoting a new release in New York City, you’re probably wasting your money. You only need to be 1/6th as successful to get the same number of plays in Bangkok, for instance, and for a far cheaper cost as well.
Remember that the trigger cities are not only where you get the most plays, but where you make the most money as a result. And, unlike in the old music business, these days a hit can start from anywhere in the world, so almost anywhere can become a trendsetter.
